During our debate, Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the Web) made a brilliant observation which was totally marketing driven and not at all technical.

Tim Berners-Lee’s response

People are used to seeing WWW on business cards so it’s expected.

Technically, we don’t need the WWW in our Web addresses. However, many Web masters are failing to park their domains properly. Could you be turning away potential visitors?

Does your Web site work when you remove WWW from the address?

Aidan explains how to ensure your site works with and without WWW.

Share it

Do you read both blogs and if so, do you mind the duplication of stories covered on both? Are there specific topics you’d rather I covered, or didn’t cover on either of them? Any feedback you provide will be greatly appreciated. Until I received feedback, I’ll continue to post what I think is relevant, to both blogs. Thanks to Dennis Howlett for advice regarding this matter.

Now onto the article you came here for…

I picked up from TechCrunch this morning that Robert Scoble, one of the most influential bloggers in the world, has been banned from Facebook for breaking its terms and conditions.

Apparently, Robert tried to run a script over Facebook to export all of his contacts in one go. Those of us who know Facebook rather well, know that this will break their terms of use. He would have known that this was likely to end in tears. That said, perhaps Robert was pulling a PR stunt knowing that everyone would end up not only talking about it, but rallying behind him.

I must point out that I like Robert, a lot. I think what he does is brilliant and his contribution to industry is nothing short of fantastic. So, my post isn’t directed at Robert, but the Facebook conversation that’s taking place in the social arena that is Twitter.

If you break the rules, you should expect to be treated like everyone else. Just because Robert has thousands of connections and is very well known to millions, it doesn’t mean he should be treated any differently to anyone else. I have a friend who sent me a text message whilst I was on holiday as her account had been disabled. I just happen to know the VP of PR & Marketing and the VP of Sales so she thought I could exercise my connections in her favour. Her account was probably canned due to the number of event requests she sent out each week – there was a lot, but people signed up to her notifications. I must add that they were very exclusive events too.

Everyone who considers themselves as a ’social media’ guru should know that Facebook is closed and that you’re not permitted to use scripts to remove contacts. So, you should either join the club and abide by the rules, or leave. Right?

Well, yes and no. You shouldn’t break the rules and not expect to be punished. But, we should try to persuade Facebook that being closed isn’t good for industry as a whole. We should be able to retain ownership of our data. If you’re still unsure about what I’m talking about, try to export your friends’ email addresses. You’ll notice that it’s impossible because email addresses are made up of images. To comply with basic industry best practices, email addresses like everything else, should at least be text. To take this a step further, they should come in the form of a Microformat. You’d then be able to download email addresses automatically to a client such as Outlook.

Oh wait, making it easy for people to export hundreds, possibly thousands of email addresses… wouldn’t that make it easy for unscrupulous companies to harvest and then SPAM? You could argue that Facebook is helping to protect the vast majority whilst upsetting the minority. Personally, I think it’s just a matter of time. Facebook only opened it’s doors to non-universities a year ago. The business community has only started to flirt with it since the summer with London boasting the largest geographical network in the world.

What Facebook does well, is very small iterative changes to improve the user experience. You’ll notice that it’s not inclined to make huge changes to the platform – that’s probably because they’ll upset a lot of people if they get it wrong. Given that it’s still early days, getting major changes wrong is more likely. So, perhaps opening up email addresses is on the long ‘to-do’ list and will only be executed when they’ve figured out how to protect users from themselves.

I was one of the first employed by AOL in Europe in 1995, when it was a small startup, so I get the whole ‘walled garden’ thing. I don’t think it’s healthy for industry in the long term. But it is a necessary evil at the beginning to ensure users have a positive user experience within an environment where they are protected.

However, there comes a point in time when you need to knock down the walls. I’m not sure when that time should be for Facebook but one thing is for sure, their decision is not going to be influenced by early adopters. They’ll most likely listen to audiences which include influencers with a lot of connections, who would follow them to a competitor.

I believe it’s a little harsh to automatically ban users from Facebook. This should be done manually after humans have first given a warning and second, made sure that they’re making the right decision. If AOL could do it more than 10 years ago with millions of users, I’m sure Facebook can today given the technology available to staff.

Read some interesting article on this topic

Hear what Robert Scoble has to say

Hear what CentreNetworks has to say

My source: TechCrunch

Share it

We’re looking for a volunteer to design a one/two page flyer for the BIMA Facebook Debate event which takes place in a few weeks. So, time is of the essence. Check out the Facebook event page here.

This invite is open to agencies, freelancers and students. All we ask is for you to put your name forward along with a few examples of your work. Nothing long winded required and no formal pitching will be requested.

We’re not entirely sure how the winner will be picked. What we do know, is that it will be very informal and very quick.

So, please volunteer now and get your brand noticed by the huge audience that’s talking about the event. We’ll promote your work on the flyer so everyone will know who designed it!

We’ll also give you 2 guest passes and 2 limited edition t-shirts. The event is completely sold out and the t-shirts haven’t even been designed yet.

Please get in touch by emailing paul@segala.com

Share it

I’m reading more and more reports coming in that O2 is going to sell the Apple iPhone in the UK. However, this doesn’t make sense to me because it’ll mean users will have open access to the Web and quickly realise that iMode (premium content which makes up for most of O2′s data revenue) isn’t what they want. What they’re looking for is the ability to access whatever Web site they want and not just what O2 want them (you) to see.

Then again, if O2 is to ship the all singing and all dancing device, they’re likely to either remove the Web browser altogether, or make it difficult to find. This approach isn’t unusual for Operators when installing their own ‘variant software’ before distribution to retail outlets. Just because mobile vendors include specific applications, it doens’t mean Operators will include them when selling on to customers.

O2 is certainly not likely to place the Web and iMode browsers where they have equal prominence. Or are they? Perhaps they productised iMode to make it’s proposition more attractive to Telefonica and now realise it’s time to offer off-portal content.

The last time I wrote about the Mobile Web vs the Mobile Internet (cough; premium WAP stuff) I received a stunning word count of more than 17,000 words in comments alone. That’s a small book. To add to this, they were from very qualified people I trust at organisations such as Google, MobileAware, .mobi, WURFL and Opera. As a founding member of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative Steering Council, this is a subject close to my heart. It’s an area which attracts a lot of much needed debate too, which I quite like.

In short, I haven’t seen the iPhone yet, but I’ve always believed (before Apple announced its launch) that it will revolutionise how people perceive, consume and create content for small devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. It will demonstrate that the Mobile Web is not only about train timetables and weather information for business people traveling from Slough to London, as most mobile specific experts seem to believe.

There are more people in the world without access to the Web than there are who do. Most of these people live in developing countries. They’re likely to use mobile devices as their primary access point to the Web as it’s cheaper to roll out mobile networks than it is fixed line. Don’t be fooled into thinking users in developing countries don’t use the latest devices either, because they do. They’re fantastic early adopters.

If we were to sneeze in the European mobile market today, the US would catch a cold 2 to 3 years later. However, this may soon change with the release of the iPhone if the yanks finally realise the full potential of mobile devices and how they can engage consumers. As I see it, the iPhone is on par with the release of the first Intel Pentium chip, which helped to revolutionise our thought process regarding the capabilities of personal computers and the applications that could run on them.

If you decide to take a look at my original post about Mobile Web vs Mobile Internet, make sure to read the comments as they splintered off into a separate conversation to the original post. Even the original title is a little different to the main conversation.

Share it

The walled Garden …will mobile operators’ walls tumble in 2007 (or do they know something the rest of us don’t)?

Join BIMA’s expert panellists’ debate about how mobile operators continue to have a walled garden. Is there potential disruption of the apple iPhone as an apple walled garden experience? What attitudes surround consuming operator content versus premium content providers versus portals provided by the manufacturers themselves? What is the impact of premium content consumption on operator branded handsets versus vanilla handsets?

Even though there are opportunities for advertisers to subsidise content why is it not mainstream? Are there threats to premium content providers playing alongside operators with triple play and quad play offerings – sharing and consuming content over integrated web and mobile offerings? What will the impact on broadcasters entering the mobile space really look like?

Date: Tuesday 6th March 2007
Time: Arrive at 5.45 for a 6:15 start
Venue: LBi, 1 Naoroji Street, WC1X 0JD
BIMA members: £24 £23.50
Non-members: £39 £39.95
Close to Leicester Square station. Map

• Steve Wolak, Web Technologies Manager, Vodafone Group R&D – UK
• Andrew McGrath, Director, Design and Usability, Orange Group
• Peter Ford, Alliances Director, EMEA with ATG.

After the debate, continue the discussion and network over a glass of wine (or 2, or 3).

Email Janice to book your seat now!

Speaker profiles can be found by clicking through to the full post

Stephen Wolak
Web Technologies Manager, Vodafone Group R&D – UK

Stephen has worked in the mobile industry since graduating from Imperial College in 1985. His career kicked off at Motorola Communications in Basingstoke where he helped get their mobile exchange working with BT’s System X exchanges. Next stop was also in Basingstoke, Orbitel Mobile Communications – which later became Ericsson – working on the software for the new digital base stations. There followed a short diversion into academia as a Senior Lecturer in Software Engineer at Portsmouth University.

Software development was resumed at NEC Technologies in Reading, where he worked as a Software Group Leader on NECs GSM mobile phones and in particular the new WAP stack before joining Vodafone.

At Vodafone Group R&D in Newbury Stephen set up the Service Enabling Technologies Team to research into new technologies for mobile services. Projects have included; IMS, NFC, moblogging, mobile communities and more recently Vodafone Betavine (see www.vodafonebetavine.net ) and online collaborative R&D space for Mobile and Internet Communications.

Andrew McGrath
Director, Design and Usability, Orange

Since June 2006 Andrew has run the Orange Global Design and Usability team based at Paddington Basin in London. The 18 strong team has a remit to deliver Group design solutions and specifications for the whole of Orange. Current design activities encompass Mobile Handset UI, Mobile application UI, WAP, Web and TV experiences.

Prior to joining Orange in 2004 Andrew ran the UI team in 3 UK for 4 years and before that he worked for 9 years in BT as a Designer in their Research and Development activity in Adastral Park Suffolk

Andrew studied Product Design at Glasgow School of Art and then at Manchester Metropolitan University

Peter Ford
Alliances Director, EMEA with ATG

A 25 year industry veteran, Peter joined ATG in January 2006 and has been at the forefront of developing the go-to-market strategy with the Partner Community in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The transformation has been rapid with significant revenue returns to ATG Europe inside the first 12 months. Balanced between conventional Alliances and Sales Management/Business Development disciplines, he’s spent the last 12 years in International Alliances and Channels, of which the last 8 years has been in the Internet and Web Services market with organisations including management roles in the European Operations of OpenMarket and Interwoven.

At OpenMarket, the Alliances strategy there saw the European Operations outgrow those of the US with a 350% increase in revenue. At Interwoven he developed the Partner model in Continental Europe to increase revenue contribution by over 600% whilst restructuring the business across the EMEA region.

Prior to this Peter held a number of Senior Sales Management positions in organisations including Comshare and Xerox.

Register now!

Share it

It was held at BT’s astounding conference centre, which possibly has the best conference facilities I’ve seen. It was fully equipped with a control room, 2 video cameras, live bloggers, investors, entrepreneurs and Semantic enthusiasts.

I don’t know who I was scared of most, bloggers hitting the enter key as you took a pause, or the 3 people wearing ties (Jag ?) Although I’m not sure how many logged on to blog given that BT were charging for Wi-Fi – how bizarre.

The evening was facilitated and kicked off by Sam Sethi who gave intimate demonstrations on Microformats. Mark Birbeck from X-Port was the first speaker up and gave a good demonstration on how his

next-generation semantic web browser that seamlessly combines XForms with other languages such as SVG, MathML and X3D.

I spoke about how Content Labels can (and will in my opinion) be a major player in changing how search works in the future. I talked about how they are a great use case for demonstrating the benefits of the Semantic Web in a meaningful way for end users. I also gave a demonstration of a Firefox extension which did all of the above.

Thanks to ReadWrite/Web Route79’s Flickr for both photographs. I believe the video will be on YouTube soon.

In essence, our Firefox extension (built by our friends at Glaxstar) provides users with more information about a particular Web site from the search results screen. This means users no longer have to hit a site before finding out if it is suitable to them. The suitability of content are determined by the users needs, such as suitability for minors, disabled users, privacy conscientious users, security, identity and so on.

If you want to learn more about ‘how’ Content Labels look to end users, visit our Search Thresher Web site. Alternatively you can read what ReadWrite/Web had to say as they’ve given a pretty good explanation themselves (well done!). There is more to add so I’ll write it up soon.

Tony Fish was last to articulate his thoughts. I’m not sure if I got what he was saying, but it sounded interesting. I’m a very philosophical person myself. Given that I own Michelin rated restaurants in Dublin, I found his analogy using food interesting… personally though, I don’t care what a kebab looks like after a few beers – watch out for the video if you want to put this into context

We ended up with a lively debate during the panel discussion with questions flying in from the audience. There were a couple of people however, who just didn’t get what we’re trying to achieve with Content Labels. I’d like to put it down to speaking for such a short space of time, so it’s impossible to appeal. to everyone.

There’s only so much you can do to ensure you appeal to as many listeners as possible. I certainly wasn’t there for a debate about ‘RDF ‘. I was there to show what you can do with it for end users. Having said that, I did enjoy the banter with the few individuals that got hung up on police forces patrolling the Web and their definitions of machine-readable vs machine-understandable.

Basically, I was being blamed for trying to ‘police the Internet’ and ‘restrict access to the open Web’. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. I would simply like Web site owners to provide more information about the content on their Web sites so users can make informed decisions before entering them. We can also enable Web site owners to have their assertions about content verified. This helps them to demonstrate an additional layer of trust to consumers.

I really did enjoy the evening as I love a good debate. There’s nothing worse than attending an event and not getting the opportunity to ask the speakers direct questions. I hate attending broadcast events where speakers stand up, talk and then sit down.

Perhaps the people who disagreed with my approach to enabling trust on the Web could articulate their thoughts on this blog if they happen to stumble upon it in the future.

To get a very good break down on the topics that were being discussed take a look at ReadWrite/Web’s post . Thanks for the mention!

Take a look at Paul Miller’s post if you would like very good coverage on speakers and comments coming in from the audience.

The networking part afterwards was great for me personally. I met a few very interesting people who I hope to see again in the future.

Share it

Basically one of the participants of the group, Luca Passani, complained about the group using the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a starting point for creating the MWI Best Practices document.

It was almost impossible to get across to Luca, that only relevant WCAG stuff was used. The group meticulously reviewed each checkpoint on conference calls and by email until it had exhausted each one. We then added best practices that were specific to mobile.

The conversation digressed into ‘why should we try to make everything accessible to disabled people anyway’. Nobody actually made such a claim in the first place and the conversation started to loose track as it did in my post. In fact, it’s still going on now so I’d like to take it to this post (if it hasn’t already died). Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

The post appears to be attracting attention from Luca’s corner of the world. That is, mobile developers who build WAP sites (and other types of mobile related applications). These are very qualified comments so I’m not putting them down in any way. I’m simply highlighting that the conversation needs to be balanced. I think this can be achieved by soliciting feedback from people who wish to see the desktop Web realised on more devices such as mobile phones. Apple and Nokia appear to think it will happen soon.

So, a little background to the MWI

The principal objective of the MWI Best Practice document is to improve the user experience of the Web when accessed from mobile devices.
It is primarily directed at creators, maintainers and operators of Web sites. Readers of this document are expected to be familiar with the creation of Web sites, and to have a general familiarity with the technologies involved, such as Web servers and HTTP.

Readers are not expected to have a background in mobile-specific technologies.

So, the MWI is not about encouraging more WAP sites, or any other type of content that is specific to mobile devices and which doesn’t work on other devices such as desktop computers. People who wish to develop such content can do so. So there’s no need to slate the MWI though.

Luca and I violently disagree when it comes to the future of the Web on mobile devices. In short, Luca believes that WAP is the way forward. Or at least, something that is created specific for mobile devices only.

My view, is actually more along the lines of what Tim Berners-Lee wants to see happen (although I’m not speaking on his behalf). I could be wrong, but at least I’m in good company. I believe we should bring the Web as everyone knows it today, to mobile.

Naturally, you can’t just browse the Web on a mobile phone and expect a great experience ‘today’. But we should look to enable it as best we can by delivering content that is a contextual representation of the device accessing it. This will be enabled through standardised mobile browsers, Web enabled mobile devices, cheaper tarriffs and of course, best practices design techniques for developers.

• The number of people without access to the Web is greater than the number who do.
• Most of these people are in developing countries.
• Developing countries are more likely to use mobile as the primary access device for the Web as it’s cheaper than rolling out a fix line network.
• People in developing countries don’t give a toss about the weather or travel information as suggested by just about every mobile ‘expert’ I speak with or listen to. The world is bigger than Slough. And not every train goes from Slough to London.

However, there will *always* be a use case for mobile specific applications. I simply want to promote the Web so it can be accessed by anyone irrespective of their ability, device or location.

That doesn’t mean that every Web site must be accessible to everyone all of the time. It’s about best endeavours.

What do you think? Are you happy to continue using WAP sites or would you like to see better mobile devices, cheaper tariffs and best practices that help developers build mobile friendly Web sites?

When you go into a phone shop as I did recently and ask for a Web enabled phone, do you want to be handed a handset that only supports a list of WAP sites that the operator wants you to access? Or, like me, do you want to browse the Web on a mobile (assume for a second that it’s free) in the future?

I’d love to hear what you think, whether you agree with me or not, of course

Original post

Share it

[Update 21/1/7 - I've decided not to write a second post about this as there's no point in prolonging the debate.]

Ok, this is what prompted me to spend the best part of the last hour on this post. Tom Raftery, a respectable blogger and podcaster thinks you should air your complaints in a public forum. I agree. Isn’t that the whole point of a blog? That is, open, honest and transparent?

Well, some disagree with Tom (and I), as articulated by some of the commentators on Tom’s blog.

Most bloggers will know who Tom is but not all of our readers have blogs (yet). So for those of you who don’t know who he is, you’ll probably remember when O’Reilly publishers presented a cease and desist to a conference for using the term “Web 2.0”? Well, that was the IT Cork conference that Tom helps to organise, ironic because Tim O’Reily is a Cork man himself.

To set the scene I’ve copied below, the most important aspects of the dialog that took place between Tom and a hosting provider Blacknight. Apparently, Blacknight experienced some technical difficulty which saw the loss of Tom’s data on one of their servers. This troubled Tom, but it wasn’t his motivation for blogging his disappointment.

It was Blacknight’s handling of the matter that annoyed Tom most. Instead of apologising to Tom and reassuring him that it wouldn’t happen again, they acted like Teflon robots by absolving themselves of any kind of responsibility (from what I’ve read and what I’ve been told by Tom on Skype). After learning of Tom’s original post highlighting their poor support, Blacknight asked him to remove all of his data, as they no longer wanted him as a customer. Wow, if that doesn’t scare off existing and potential customers, nothing will.

If this is the type of response we can expect from brand owners, I’m sure it’ll do little to please mainstream bloggers.

A snippet from Tom’s post

Blacknight Solutions contacted me this afternoon and asked me to move all my sites off their servers. They no longer want my business. Why? Because I criticised their customer service after they lost all my podcasts, didn’t tell me about it until I discovered it a couple of weeks later, and when I did report it to them, they blamed me for asking for a temporary home for my podcasts (untrue).

Now, the technical screw up shouldn’t take the limelight so let’s put that aside, even if they did manage to delete Tom’s podcast with Sam Sethi (hehe Sam isn’t having much luck with deletions lately!). At least they didn’t delete the interview he did with me

I’m very interested in exploring Blacknight’s response to the situation. I think it demonstrates how Europeans don’t fully appreciate the power of the blog as a weapon in the marketing armoury, at least not as much as they do in the US. As the saying goes, ‘when America sneezes we’ll catch a cold the following week’.

My personal opinion was strengthened recently during an interview I did with a journalist from the Sunday Tribune. During the interview the lovely lady asked the question that many are trying to answer, ‘where’s the money from blogs?’ My answer is simple; it’s not about money blogs make from advertising. It’s about the return you get on brand awareness through interacting with the consumer and showing that you care about what they think. This can be a brand engaging with the blogsphere/consumer, or it can be a blogger demonstrating their skills and experience to people who are likely to employ them.

I believe we now live in a world of ‘permanent beta’. That is, our products and services are under constant development based on customer feedback. This is exactly why the entire Segala corporate site is moving to WordPress.

Proof that blogs can make a difference
I posted a comment to support Tom on his post during which I highlighted the poor customer service Segala experienced with Hosting365 and Irish Broadband. Within 12 hours, Ed Byrne, Marketing Director from Hosting 365 emailed me. See below.

Hi Paul,

I read your comment on Tom Raftery’s blog about Hosting365′s service.

First of all I am very sorry you have that opinion of us. 2005 was a tough year for Hosting365 – we’ll be putting up a long blog post about that soon – we went from 16 to over 30 staff and built 2 new support teams. I hope that customers now start seeing positive results from this.

I’m not going to try and pretend we had a perfect customer experience in 2005 – we didn’t – and we’re working to build back customer trust and deliver BETTER support – as we see it as our core driver of growth. All I would say is that if you are moving to Rackspace, you are clearly getting a dedicated server – you are currently on shared hosting, which is a massive step down from dedicated, and receives different SLA’s and support lines. Of course the cost reflects this.

Regardless of whether the deal is done, or sites already moved, I would like to extend an invitation for you to come in and have a quick chat – show you around the facility. For our business – any business – reputation is absolutely key, so I’d really like to show you the investment we’ve made and get feedback as a customer, on what we should be focussing on.

Ok, so we had a poor experience with their customer and technical support teams. But here’s a marketer who is clearly switched on and someone I now have a lot of time for. Most of Segala’s data has already migrated to Rackspace, but the current site is still with Hosting 365. I’m so impressed by Ed’s (Hosting 365) response that I’m prepared to retain their service for some of our data, on the premise that their customer support team listen as well as their marketing colleagues and react just as quick.

Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. So, why not explain yourself and try to put it right as Hosting 365 demonstrates. I wonder if Irish Broadband will get in touch. I doubt it very much considering the amount of times I offered to fly to Dublin (from the UK) specifically to discuss our relationship with a member of its management team. They don’t even bother to return our calls.

Rackspace charge a deposit when they’re unable to perform credit checks on companies outside the UK. When I heard this I instructed my team to look elsewhere. Within an hour, Rackspace called back to say that after a little research, they realised our affiliations was enough. Another good example of a company that goes out of their way.

Back to the positive side. Tom’s post
This is a brilliant example of a blog post making a real difference.
My conclusion
Brand owners, please take the blogsphere very seriously and engage with it now. You can do this through your own blog and/or through mainstream and respectable bloggers. Consumers will blog (and probably are right now) about your brand whether you like it or not, so its wise to engage and at the very least, gain respect for showing that you care.

Bloggers, please take a leaf out of Tom’s book and be open and honest. You might not make friends with everyone, but you’ll certainly have their respect and sometimes, admiration.
FYI Tom didn’t just blog his experience, he first tried to resolve it with the supplier.

Share it